The New York Giants have a chance to make life pretty miserable for one of their NFC East rivals this Sunday.
The G-Men head to Landover, MD, sitting at 3-1 and alone atop the division, with a chance to improve to 2-0 in NFC East play and drop the Washington Commanders to 1-4. It’s obviously way too early in the season to start eliminating teams from the playoff picture, but getting out of a 1-4 hole with two division losses isn’t exactly how head coach Dan Quinn drew up the first five weeks.
With Marcus Mariota sidelined by an MCL sprain and seventh-round rookie Athan Kaliakmanis otherwise in line to start, Quinn told reporters Monday that the “goal” is for quarterback Jayden Daniels to practice fully this week and return against the Giants nearly three weeks after dislocating his left elbow.
Commanders’ Jayden Daniels plan feels desperate with Giants coming to town
Daniels hasn’t played since dislocating his elbow on the final play of the first half against the Dallas Cowboys in Week 2. He spent the following week visiting specialists before returning to practice in London last week, although the Commies ultimately kept him out of Sunday’s 30-13 loss to the Indianapolis Colts.
You have to wonder if we’re even having this conversation if Mariota doesn’t get hurt.
The 12-year veteran led Washington to its only win of the season against the Seattle Seahawks before spraining his MCL against the Colts, an injury expected to sideline him for the next couple of weeks. That leaves Kaliakmanis, who completed 15 of 31 passes for 186 yards with a touchdown and an ugly interception in his NFL debut, as their only alternative if Daniels isn’t ready to go.
Suddenly, that injured elbow probably feels a little better.
Daniels has said the decision on whether he’ll play Sunday will ultimately be his, which is where I start raising an eyebrow. The 2024 Offensive Rookie of the Year obviously wants to play, especially with Washington’s season already getting away from them.
But he’s also supposed to be their franchise QB for a lot longer than Week 5 of 2026. And haven’t we watched Washington do some version of this before?
Nobody needs the full Robert Griffin III story here, but this is the same franchise that infamously kept putting its injured QB onto the field while his knee deteriorated in 2012. Different ownership, different coaching staff, different injury. Still, you’d think the history alone would make the organization overly cautious with another young signal-caller supposedly carrying the future of the team.
Maybe Daniels practices all week, gets cleared, feels great, and none of this matters. That’s entirely possible.
If Daniels is fully cleared and ready to go, the Giants will deal with him Sunday. But Washington better be sure that’s why he’s playing, because 1-3 isn’t worth gambling with the guy who’s supposed to get you out of messes like this for the next decade, just to potentially save the head coach’s job.
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